When Four Became Three
by BlaireBDoll
Summary: Just like salt contaminates soil, poisoning the plants growing in it, special powdered doughnuts steal away a blonde Dresden doll. The night when it became the Ballerina Doll, the Doctor Doll, the Praying-To-Grow-Taller-Doll, and the Dead Doll, from Corrine's POV.
1. Four Little Mice

_**Terribly, terribly sorry about what a disappearance, if anyone took notice that is **__**J**__** I misplaced my passcodes into FanFiction, and had to dig through all my saved notes on my laptop to find where I put them. I'm horrible when it comes to naming documents. Literally when I decide to write something, on my own or as a Fanfic, I just title it 'Short' and then put a number beside it. It's bad. I have about thirty-one of those now, and never remember what's on what.**_

_**Anyways, I'm back. Back to some more Dollanganger Saga stuff! After months of begging and waiting, I got another copy of Seeds of Yesterday. Unfortunately, the bookstore was sold out of Garden of Shadows and my parents couldn't pick it up for me, so I'm without the fifth book for a little while.**_

_**I like writing these moments from Corrine's point of view. She was their mother after all. **_

_**As usual, nothing belongs to me, just the wonderful V.C Andrews.**_

_Oh Lord forgive me_, Corrine prayed as she followed her mother to the attic room where her children were. Her little Dresden dolls withering away up there. Oh so many people assumed she was an airhead, that things flew past her and she could carry along breezily with a charmed smile and light in her eyes.

Not up here, never up here in the attic, visiting her four babies who looked more and more horrid and sickly than the previous visit. It was the guilt that kept her away, the guilt in seeing what her quest to gain the inheritance that was rightfully hers, was doing to her children. Her and her dear Christopher's little blonde dolls. All of those happy memories with her first husband in Gladstone, Pennsylvania seemed like they belonged to someone else, and she somehow had all the old memories.

Her mother had come to fetch her, telling her in that bitter voice of hers, that one of her sons seemed to have fallen ill, and the other three were taking it all very badly. Cory. Poor Cory, if it wasn't one thing, it was always another to befall him. Always sick, always having some sort of allergy to deal with. Out of all her children, he seemed to have the bad luck with genes. Genes she and Chris had to foolishly mixed when none should have.

Though she'd never regret it. Those four were - had been - absolutely perfect in every way a woman could hope and pray for her children to be. She was hesitant to say that now, with their shadowed eyes and hollowed words.

She followed quickly into the small room, doing her best to ignore the worried looks of Christopher, Catherine and even young Carrie. There lay Cory in one of the beds, looking far more ill than he'd ever been in his life. She swallowed nervously, and touched his clammy face with her hands slowly.

Eventually, she slipped off to the side to speak with her mother, and as if she were the doting mother Catherine instantly filled to take the new space, cleaning off the sweat off Cory's brow, looking so concerned.

"He's ill" her mother said gravely, and Corrine nodded, already knowing that was very obvious. "It's not just a cold, or allergy, like you say he's afflicted with" she added, a knowing look in her eyes.

Corrine swallowed, thinking of powdered doughnuts. How many had he been eating? Why was Cory the only one so ill like that? Was his body weaker than the other threes? Had they, God forbid, been giving Cory _all _their special treats?

"Well, we'll take him to a hospital then, some doctor who won't ask any questions" Corrine murmured, swallowing nervously. Her fingers rose to twist pearls, but found none. She had none on, none to twist and occupy her nervous, trembling hands. They fell uselessly at her side for a moment, before she was twisting her fingers. She needed to keep her hands busy. Needed to.

"We can't do that" her mother said crossly. Expected answer. There was so much risk, taking Cory out to get someone to treat him. Someone surely would see the connection, he looked too much like a Foxworth, the blonde curls and the blue eyes, no matter how frail and ill he looked, there really was no mistaking him for who he was.

"Why are you standing there whispering?" Cathy's voice rang out, angry and worried. "What choice do you have but to take Cory to a hospital, and get him the best doctor available?" Corrine turned and glared at her eldest daughter, who had a fire in her eyes. That fire was something dangerous, like someone who leaves a spark left unattended in the forest in a flush summer season. It eventually will catch and make flames.

Her eyes dropped from Cathy's furious blue ones, to little Cory. All the risks, all of them right at this very moment, being put straight to the test. What would she pick? Waiting this out, seeing if Cory's body was strong enough to fight it all off and risking very possible… death… or finding a doctor of some kind to help him now. Child or inheritance, it should be such an easy answer, it should be… but…

"What's the matter with you, Momma?" Are you just going to stand there and think about yourself, and that money while your youngest son lies there and dies? You have to help him! Don't you care what happens to him? Have you forgotten you are his mother? If you haven't, then, damn it, act like his mother! Stop hesitating! He needs attention now, not tomorrow!"

Oh how bitter and angry her Catherine had gotten. Every time she visited, Corrine had seen the dark look in her daughter's eyes. Carrie and Cory, they were young and still understood very little of why they were hidden away, and remembered little of life outside it. Christopher still loved and trusted her, clung to her and believed in her. But not Cathy, never Cathy.

She felt her face flush angrily, and her eyes snapped straight to Cathy. "You!" She spat loudly. "Always it's you!" She didn't even think, it was as if someone controlled her body, and she was watching it all play out. Her ringed hand was raised, and then…

SMACK!

SMACK!

None of this was right, none at all. Everything she had hoped and planned was slipping through her fingers like it was sand. Corrine wasn't even paying attention, too surprised by her own actions, not until another loud SMACK rang out, flung with just as much force and more malice. She blinked, realizing that Catherine had just slapped her right back.

Cathy's hand raised to do it once more, maybe a million more, but Christopher seized her arms holding them back to stop her from sending another strike at her. "Cathy, you're not helping Cory by acting like this. Calm down. Momma will do the right thing" he told her. Oh, that was wonderful. Her Christopher, her son, still believed. He believed she was trying, that she would help and it would all work eventually. One out of four was better than none, right?

"Damn you to hell, Corrine Foxworth" Cathy screeched, right at the top of her very lungs, "if you don't take your son to a hospital! You think you can do anything you want with us, and no one will find out! Well, you can throw that security blanket, for I'll find a way for revenge, if it takes me the rest of my life, I'll see that you pay, and pay dearly, if you don't do something right now to save Cory's life. Go on, glare at me, and cry and plead, and talk to me about money and what it can buy. But it can't buy back a child once he's dead! And if that happens, don't you think I won't find a way to get to your husband and tell him you have four children you have kept hidden in a locked room with their only playground an attic… and you've kept them there for years and years! See if he loves you then! Watch his face and wait to see how much respect and admiration he has for you then!" Her rant went on, getting louder. "And what's more, I'll to go the grandfather and tell him, too! And you won't inherit one damned red penny and I'll be glad, glad, glad!"

Was that any way for a daughter to talk to her own mother? No, it certainly was not! Words of honoring thy mother and thy father had been instilled into Corrine's head as a girl herself, and this certainly was not honoring! She didn't know what she wanted to do, but she was furious at those words. Furious that Cathy was so bitter and couldn't see she was trying her best, that she was forever ungrateful for what Corrine was trying to do for them all!

"The girl is right Corrine. The child must go to a hospital" her mother said in a quiet voice, so unlike her. She swallowed and said nothing.


	2. Withering Little Flower

She returned in the night, after the servants had gone off to their quarters that were off over the garage. She said nothing when she entered, for what could she say? Catherine's words rang in her ears, as they had been ever since they'd left her four children in the attic to wait until the servants retired for the night.

Cory was wrapped tenderly in Cathy's arms as she worried and fretted over him, just like a mother. Though, she was the mother now to the twins now. It was like a twisted game of house, one Corrine had created all by accident and was forced to bear witness. Cathy and Chris, carbon copies of she and her own Christopher, their father, and the two twins, cared and loved as if they were their own children, not their younger sister and brother.

Corrine and her mother pulled Cory from Catherine, wrapping him into a green blanket, one that Corrine had found. She lifted him up, and was distraught at how light he felt to her. Little boys his age shouldn't be so light, nor so sick. No, no, no…

"Don't take Cory away!" Carrie wailed brokenly. "Don't take him, don't" Corrine watched her youngest daughter fling herself into Cathy's arms, wailing and pleading for her older sister to stop them from taking Cory. Corrine watched carefully as Cathy stared down at a tearful Carrie. Then in an instant, Cathy looked up and met her gaze straight on.

"It's all right for Cory to go" her voice was strong and sure, "for I am going, too. I'll stay with Cory while he's in the hospital. Then he won't be afraid. When the nurses are to busy to wait on him, I'll be there. That will make him get well quicker, and Carrie will feel good knowing I'm with him" she said.

"Cathy's right, Momma" Chris piped up from where he'd been standing and watching everything. Looking like a dutiful father and husband in this twisted home that he and his sister had created for the twins, for themselves. Her son met her eyes, no warmth in them. His earlier words of trust when he'd held back his sister from striking her again gone from her mind.

Corrine was not stupid, she grasped the very meaning of Cathy's words and Chris' defense of them. They were parents to the twins now, and believed themselves better at it. That Cory loved them as mother and father now, and she was not it. She was no fool, oh no. She'd watched Cory and Carrie know her less and less as a mother, and begin to think and look at her as if she were a pretty stranger, bringing gifts.

Her eyes flickered from Cathy, then Chris, snapping quick to her mother and little Carrie still clinging to Cathy with tears in her eyes and streaking her face, dropping to Cory.

She swallowed thickly and turned, strolling from the attic room with her youngest son in cradled in her arms, as her mother hurried behind her on her heels. She heard the Carrie screaming, even though the door had been locked behind them, her words muffled yes, but it was as if the door had been left wide open for her screaming to be heard clear as day.

She hurried out to a car they'd prepared before going up, her mother opening the back door for her since her arms were too full to manage it herself. She reached in and laid Cory down onto the back seat, hands trembling. She closed the door, and hurried into the driver's spot, while her mother was already buckling herself into the passengers seat.

She wasted no time, practically stomping down onto the gas pedal to leave the driveway. It took all her self control to not speed. She wanted to, Lord knows she did. She wanted to stomp her foot into the pedal to go as fast as this car would be able to travel, to get to that damn hospital and fix this mess.

"Don't speed Corrine" her mother snapped at her. She swallowed and shot a brave glare at her mother, eyes then flickering back to the road ahead of them, to the mirror to check on Cory, who was taking pitiful, ragged breaths. It was as if air couldn't get to his lungs fast enough. "If you speed, someone will take notice, then we'll be sitting here longer" she added.

It was a few moments longer of her blue eyes flickering from the road, to Cory. Back and forth over and over, until it got far too silent in the car. No little ragged breathing… her heart stopped, throat constricting at once. Her mother noticed to, eyes flickering to hers in question.

Corrine twisted, dangerously taking her eyes from the road. No puffs of air from Cory, no… nothing. She pulled the car over to the side of the road. There was no point trying to race to a hospital. No, no, not now… not now. Never now. Cory… her little Cory… dead.

If there had ever been a moment when Corrine hated herself in the past, hated herself for having to come to Foxworth Hall, hated herself for locking her children away, hated herself for what was happening to their lives… none of that compared to this. None at all!

Realization sunk in deep, mixing with all the other emotions she was having a tremendous time controlling. She had killed her son. Her and her Christopher's son, Carrie's twin, Cathy and Chris' younger brother, she had killed. Damn those doughnuts, damn the very idea she'd get the four out. Damn it all, all of it! She'd just killed her son, and nothing else could fix that.

Cathy was right, no matter how much money she could spend, she couldn't buy back a child once it was dead. Cory was gone, and it was all her and her selfish actions that were to blame.

And now she had a body to hide.


End file.
